During October TownsWeb Archiving ran our first UK Digital Heritage Survey, aimed at building a picture of what proportion of UK archives, museums and libraries were publishing their collections online.

The digital heritage survey also aimed to gain an idea of which tools and collections management/ publishing platforms cultural heritage institutions were utilising to open up access to their collections online, and what barriers they are facing.

Over 170 UK institutions took part in the survey; ranging from local history centres and business archives, to rare book libraries and national museums. Below we’ve shared some of the key insights and analysis from the rich survey data collected.

Almost 60% of UK cultural heritage institutions have digital collections available online

At a broad level, our research showed that 101 (59.8%) of the institutions surveyed had at least some of their heritage collections published and accessible online.

Digging a little deeper, by institution type, libraries were higher than the broad average – with 82% of the libraries surveyed having some digital collections available online. Archives were close to the average, with 56% of archives having collections accessible online, and museums were slightly behind the average at 47%.

It is also interesting to note that museums had the largest proportion of their collections online however; with 17% of museum respondents stating that they had published over half or the majority of their digital collections online. By contrast, 13% of archives surveyed responded that half or the majority of their digital holdings were available online.

Chart below: A full breakdown of the level of collections accessible online, segmented by institution type.

72% of institutions planning to make more collections accessible online in next 12 months

As might be expected the intention among respondents to publish more digital heritage collections online was strong; with 72% of the institutions surveyed planning to make more collections accessible via the web in the next year.

Particularly encouraging is that, of the institutions that currently have no collections accessible online, over half (54%) are planning to publish their first digital material online in the next 12 months.

Furthermore, on the opposite side of the spectrum, of the institutions surveyed that have over half of their digital collections published online; 95% said they plan to add more in the next year. At best, this intent to continue making more collections accessible online could be interpreted as a sign that they are seeing positive results/engagement with the collections currently available.

Chart below: A full breakdown of the UK heritage institutions planning to publish digital collections online in the next 12 months, segmented by institution type.

Revenue generation from digital heritage collections an important factor

Anecdotally, for many of the institutions that we partner with that are planning to publish their collections online, facilities for generating revenue from the collections are of growing importance. Whether this be via charging for digital access, downloads, or physical print copies of records/images.

The survey data bears this out, with 32% of institutions stating that revenue generation is “Important” or “Vital”.

40% have no system for publishing their collections online

Of the respondents surveyed, 68 (40%) had no dedicated system for publishing their digital heritage collections online. And 76% of this segment had no collections published online at all. This underlines the, perhaps obvious, point that appropriate software infrastructure is vital to opening up access to digital heritage online.

Key barriers to opening up access to collections online

Perhaps unsurprisingly, amongst survey respondents with no collections currently available online, lack of funding for, and the cost of purchasing, a system to publish them online was the barrier most frequently identified by survey respondents.

Another important barrier identified by institutions as preventing them publishing their digital collections online were the limitations of their existing institutional website and limited compatibility of publishing systems with their current cataloguing system or collections management system.

Conclusions

Overall our Digital Heritage Survey data seems to indicate that planning and the drive to open up access to heritage collections online is strong, and remains robust across archives, museums and libraries even in the face of significant barriers.

]]>Introducing Page Explorer from PastViewhttps://www.past-view.com/news/2017/08/22/introducing-page-explorer-pastview/
Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:34:10 +0000https://www.past-view.com/?p=417Following the recent launch of PastView’s Book Explorer 3D page turning feature we are delighted to announce Page Explorer: a digital archive viewer with all the same intuitive features and engaging experience, but designed specifically for displaying single image/page archival content. Engaging viewer for digital Map, Artwork and Photographic collections Page Explorer is perfect for […]

Following the recent launch of PastView’s Book Explorer 3D page turning feature we are delighted to announce Page Explorer: a digital archive viewer with all the same intuitive features and engaging experience, but designed specifically for displaying single image/page archival content.

Engaging viewer for digital Map, Artwork and Photographic collections

Page Explorer is perfect for displaying digitised artworks, posters, photographs, maps, newspaper pages and manuscript collections online. It provides a compelling interface for users to engage with the image or record in a natural, easy-to-use way.

Page Explorer at a glance

Cutting edge viewer for digital image collections

Displays beautifully across devices – PC, tablet and smartphone

Display full screen or integrated on web-page

Intuitive Zoom tool for detail viewing

Rotate function for viewing landscape drawings/diagrams

Integrated OCR text search & on-page highlighting

Supports pop up display of metadata

Runs seamlessly on all modern internet browsers (Chrome/Edge/Explorer/Firefox)

Deep Zoom and Pan for viewing fine detail

The Page Explorer interface allows effortless deep zooming to incredibly fine detail simply by hovering the cursor over an area and using a mouse scroll wheel, double click, or pinch-and-zoom on smart phones and tablets. Panning across images is also easy and intuitive – using just a click and drag with a mouse or touch and drag on touchscreen devices.

Metadata Search and OCR text highlighting

As with Book Explorer, where written content of an image or record has been captured via optical character recognition (OCR) as textual metadata, this metadata can be instantly searched using Page Explorer’s integrated search bar.

All identified instances of the search terms on the page or image are then highlighted and the total number of instances found is displayed by the search bar. The option is also provided to allow the user to view the OCR metadata for the image/record as plain text; ideal for researchers who may wish to copy and paste the text content for their own purposes.Image below: OCR text search and on-page results highlighting using a newspaper record in PastView Page Explorer. Click image to enlarge.

Watermarking to protect copyright

As with all PastView display features, Page Explorer offers integrated watermarking to protect the copyright of images displayed online. This is completely customisable by the administrator of an institutions PastView system, allowing you to control the text or image used for the watermark, its size, placement and opacity.

Available now to all institutions using PastView

The Page Explorer feature is available as standard for all new institutions being set up with PastView, as well as to all existing institutions using PastView, with absolutely no additional costs or strings attached.

Curious? You can try Book Explorer out for yourself on live, real world collections by clicking the image above.

Powered by PastView, the compelling interface sits on the front-end of your digital archive, library or museum discovery portal and displays your digitised book collections. This makes Book Explorer ideal for making journals, magazines, photograph albums, burial registers, and other bound materials accessible online.

Book Explorer in a nutshell

Cutting edge viewer for digital book collections

3D Page turning

Displays beautifully across devices – PC, tablet and smartphone

Display full screen or integrated on web page

Loupe and Zoom tools for detail viewing

Rotate function for viewing landscape drawings/diagrams

Integrated OCR text search & on-page highlighting

Supports pop up display of per-page metadata

Runs seamlessly on all modern internet browsers (Chrome/Edge/Explorer/Firefox)

With Book Explorer you are able to configure various options to provide a seamless experience for the user including the image resolution, reading direction, whether the loupe is shown by default, and background colours of the interface.

Configuring these settings individually for every collection would be a chore – especially for institutions with larger digital holdings – so all of these settings can be configured and saved in a reusable way, allowing them to instantly be applied to new collections as they are added.

“Book Explorer provides an intuitive, easy to use platform for the public to engage with our historical Journals and presents some 30,000 pages of text in a clear and familiar way.”
Michael Pritchard, chief executive – Royal Photographic Society.

3D Page turning

Pages can be turned by clicking and dragging the cursor on a PC or simply by sliding the finger across the screen on tablet, mobile or other touchscreen devices. This can also be achieved via a single button click or finger tap if users prefer.

To keep page load times fast, PastView administrators (i.e. institution staff) can set the display resolution of digital pages within the Book Explorer. Higher resolution image can then be viewed through the Loupe and Zoom tools…

Loupe and Zoom for effortlessly viewing detail

The Loupe is an intuitive dynamic magnifying tool that displays a higher resolution, enlarged image of whichever section of the page it is hovered over. This allows for easy scanning of sections of text or fine detail on images.

The Book Explorer can also display a more traditional Zoom view of a whole page, which can be grabbed and panned. This view can be activated simply by double-clicking (or double-tapping on mobile/tablet devices) anywhere on a page.

As above, the resolution of the higher res. image displayed through the Loupe and Zoom view can be set by the institution via PastView, to ensure the optimum balance of level of detail displayed vs page load speed.

Search and integrated OCR text highlighting

Where the written content of a digitised volume has been captured via optical character recognition (OCR) as textual metadata, this metadata can be instantly searched using the Book Explorer’s integrated search bar.

The Book Explorer will move to the page with the first instance of the keyword(s) searched and highlight all instances of the keyword on that page, in addition the search bar will show how many pages within the volume include instances of the keyword(s) and allow the user to cycle through them.

The option is also provided to allow the user to view the OCR metadata for a particular page as plain text. Ideal for researchers who may wish to copy and paste the text content from a specific page or section.

Available as standard to all institutions using PastView

The Book Explorer feature is now available as standard for all new institutions being set up with PastView, as well as to all existing institutions using PastView, with absolutely no additional costs or strings attached.

Register for a free PastView demo

]]>PastView helps create North Lincolnshire Central Libraries WW1 centenary tributehttps://www.past-view.com/news/2014/09/10/pastview-helps-create-north-lincolnshire-central-libraries-ww1-centenary-tribute/
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 06:47:55 +0000http://blog.pastview/?p=37Like many libraries at the moment, North Lincolnshire Central Library (NLCL) is gathering content from it’s historic archives to create a commemorative tribute for the forthcoming First World War centenary, in 2014. As part of this NLCL is planning to publish it’s historic WW1 era newspaper collections online, a project being made possible by our […]

]]>Like many libraries at the moment, North Lincolnshire Central Library (NLCL) is gathering content from it’s historic archives to create a commemorative tribute for the forthcoming First World War centenary, in 2014. As part of this NLCL is planning to publish it’s historic WW1 era newspaper collections online, a project being made possible by our PastView digital archive management system…

Publishing NLCL’s newspaper archive online

Working in partnership with NLCL, TownsWeb developers configured a custom PastView installation to host NLCL’s digitised First World War newspaper collections, as well as designing a unique website to display the archive online.

NLCL’s digitised collections included over 800 editions of the Epworth Bells and Lincolnshire Star newspapers, published between 1911 and 1922; scanned as individual pages. TownsWeb Digital developers imported the 4,075 individual digitised pages into NLCL’s PastView installation, in addition to importing metadata (including newspaper edition and publication date) and the article text, which was captured from each image using OCR (optical character recognition) Software.

The developers then used PastView’s collections feature to arrange all of the individual images into “book” collection types; grouping the single page images from each newspaper issue into their issues.

Creating the archive website

Once the images and data had been configured in the PastView system, TownsWeb Digital staff began to develop the NLCL archive website. NLCL wanted the website to mirror the branding and style of the main North Lincolnshire Council website. Utilising some design elements from the North Lincolnshire Council website, TownsWeb developers were able to build a unique NLCL website that fulfilled this brief.

Making the online archive fully searchable

PastView’s ability to store the metadata and OCR’d text linked with each image allows NLCL Newspaper Archive website visitors to search through the entire archive in an instant.

Via the new NLCL website, visitors will be able to search the Archive by simply entering their keyword(s) into the search box. The website will then search through all the files and metadata within the PastView installation; and display results for appearances of the keywords in file names, collection names, image descriptions, transcribed text and more.

PastView’s unique “book” collection type will also allow Archive website visitors to browse through pages from a particular issue of a newspaper at the touch of a button.

This feature enables scanned pages from each individual issue of a newspaper to be grouped and displayed as collections, in order, on the NLCL website. What’s more, the website’s responsive design and magnify function allows users to move, zoom and navigate around the newspaper content effortlessly. Perfect in this world of iPads and other mobile devices.

Preparing for launch

NLCL’s PastView installation and Archive website are now complete, NLCL staff are currently using PastView’s content management module to add metadata content in preparation for sending the website live. The NLCL Newspaper Archive website is planned to launch later in 2013.

]]>PastView brings East Dunbartonshire’s photographic collection to a worldwide audiencehttps://www.past-view.com/news/2014/09/10/pastview-brings-east-dunbartonshires-photographic-collection-to-a-worldwide-audience/
https://www.past-view.com/news/2014/09/10/pastview-brings-east-dunbartonshires-photographic-collection-to-a-worldwide-audience/#respondWed, 10 Sep 2014 06:45:28 +0000http://blog.pastview/?p=35TownsWeb Archiving’s unique PastView digital archive management system has allowed East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust to share it’s rich collection of historic photographs of East Dunbartonshire online for the public. The photographic library includes images of East Dunbartonshire’s popular locations, people and buildings, dating as early as 1780. Starting the digitisation project Janice Miller, […]

]]>TownsWeb Archiving’s unique PastView digital archive management system has allowed East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust to share it’s rich collection of historic photographs of East Dunbartonshire online for the public. The photographic library includes images of East Dunbartonshire’s popular locations, people and buildings, dating as early as 1780.

Starting the digitisation project

Janice Miller, Information and Archives Officer at East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture Trust (EDLCT), approached TownsWeb Archiving when she needed to make EDLCT’s heritage photo library more accessible, by digitising the collection and showcasing it on a dedicated archive website. Following a consultation regarding the project with TownsWeb’s Managing Director, Paul Sugden, Janice was happy to partner with TownsWeb for the project.

TownsWeb digitisation staff scanned over 5000 original photographs from the library to high resolution digital format, whilst our web development team liaised with Janice to create a bespoke website design that catered exactly to EDLCT’S needs.

PastView installation

Next a customised installation of PastView was created to enable Janice’s team to search and maintain the newly digitised photographic library, and to manage the newly built EDLC Images website.

Development staff at TownsWeb imported all of the digitised images into the EDLCT PastView installation, as well as importing all of the associated metadata and creating the categories that Janice wanted the images to be browse-able under on the site. The staff also added an EDLCT watermark to protect the copyright of the images once they became live online, using PastView’s watermarking functionality.

What’s more, utilising PastView’s e-commerce functionality, EDLCT’s archive website was configured to allow site visitors to order photographic prints of images from the archive online. This feature enabled EDLCT to generate revenue from their collection, whilst TownsWeb Archiving fulfilled the orders and despatched them to customers.

PastView training and launch

Once the PastView system was configured and linked to the finished EDLCT Photo Library website, Janice and her colleagues were given access to a test version online. This allowed them to work through the system and request any minor final adjustments, before signing it off.

Paul Sugden then provided a full day of on-site training on the PastView system at EDLCT’s premises to ensure that all their staff were completely confident in maintaining the system.

Launch

After importing additional content and planning promotional coverage for the new online photographic archive, EDLCT eventually took the EDLCT Images website live in May 2013.

Speaking about the EDLCT project Paul Sugden, Managing Director of TownsWeb Archiving said “I believe PastView is the most advanced and flexible digital archive management system available at the moment.”

“In the case of EDLCT, we were able to configure the system to catalogue and display their photographic archive exactly as they wanted it. The system is so intuitive and easy to use, however, that when they do need to reorganise their collections or edit their website content their staff are able to do so at the touch of a button.”

First, in preparation for making the images available online, TownsWeb digitised 5000 images from WLCT’s rich collection of print photographs, glass plates and 35mm film strips. TownsWeb digitisation staff also performed transcription to capture the additional metadata relating to each of the images.

Web design and PastView installation

Whilst the images were being digitised, TownsWeb development staff co-ordinated with WLCT to develop the bespoke library website (http://wiganimages.wlct.org) that would showcase the archive.

As part of the website development, a keyword search facility was built into the site to allow visitors to search the image archive. An e-commerce order processing system was also put in place and linked with the WorldPay online payment platform to allow the site to process the orders.

The digitised images were imported into WLCT’s PastView installation by TownsWeb development staff, together with their associated metadata, before the system was linked to the WLCT image archive website. Once linked with the website, PastView allows visitors to keyword search through the archive against all of the metadata to find the image they want.

Once a visitor has found an image they would like to buy, a simple “Add to Cart” button enables the visitor to crop the image to a standard print size, before proceeding to the payment page. PastView’s watermarking functionality allows the archive website to display a large version of the image to the visitor, with reduced risk to WLCT’s copyright.

Hassle free e-commerce

After configuring and installing the web-based PastView system and putting the image archive website live, TownsWeb Archiving now completely handle the fulfilment of all the online print orders. TownsWeb receive the orders, produce the photographic prints, and package and despatch them to customers. This arrangement ensures WLCT receive the benefit of extra revenue, without the hassle and additional costs associated with high quality print production.

PastView – Unlocking value

“Whether you’re a public sector or private organisation, identifying and exploiting new sources of income is vital in our increasingly challenging economic climate” said Paul Sugden, Managing Director of TownsWeb Archiving, speaking about the project.

“With Wigan Leisure & Culture Trust, PastView enabled them to open their unique digital archive up to the public online and unlock it’s potential as a revenue generating, financial asset.”